Seiko SRP043k "Spork" Review

When I first started my watch collecting journey, I was immediately drawn to the design of rugged tool watches - at the time brands like Marathon, Kobold, Damasko and Sinn had the designs I craved. They were all purpose built, glowed in the dark, and had exotic features such as submarine steel, oil filled cases, or hardness coatings. These brands were out of reach for me financially; they were the metaphorical Ferrari poster on my bedroom wall. However, I was fortunate to start my watch collecting journey when Seiko was THE affordable starter brand for automatic watches. 

I found Seiko fascinating, they seemed to have a design freedom that wasn't present in other brands. Starting with the entry Seiko 5 line and extending through the rest of their catalog, their watches had a distinct character that earned them a devoted following. Some of their watches were given their own monikers such as the “Turtle” or “Samurai” by the watch community, how cool was that? Above all else there were two things: they were fun, and they were obtainable to someone just starting to find their feet in life. 

I found the often suggested SNK09 to be too small for my tastes, so I ended up with a SKX007 and a SNZG09 as my first two automatic watches, and there started my love of all things Seiko. I had all of my bases covered and had a great two watch collection: I could have and should have stopped there. My next purchase was a used SKX78, AKA “The Orange Monster”. I loved it, it was phenomenal, and it’s still in my collection to this day.

From there, I began to form a plan, a design for what my collection was going to become - I was going to collect all of the Seiko dive watches with nicknames. I was naive at the time, and looking back with what I know now I can laugh at how underprepared for the task I was.  I thought I had a pretty solid understanding of the task at hand - there were what, possibly five or six models? I hadn’t even considered the kinetic or solar variants, the Tunas, Arnies, Mohawks, Starfishes, Stargates, etc., but you don’t know what you don’t know, so I set about my quest.

I mentioned the Samurai earlier - I found one for sale and I wildly overpaid for a first generation black specimen with a steel case that looked like it had been to hell and back. It was also modded with a domed sapphire crystal and the handset from the titanium version - this was a common mod at the time, but now I regret not waiting for a clean example with the slim handset that made the first generation so unique. This watch too remains in my collection - in part as a reminder to do my due diligence before buying a used watch, and also because I’d never get back close to what I paid for it. It keeps time, it has the original bracelet, it still looks good with the sharp lines and angles of the case, albeit not as sharp as a new old stock example would be but I digress - a story for another time. 

The pinnacle of the named divers in my mind initially was the Shogun - whereas the samurai had sharp lines and angles, the shogun added sweeping curves to the sharp lines. The model was elevated by the use of titanium, which was still fairly novel in my mind as a watch material. It was maybe a touch too formal for my tastes, with the dial adding a bit of sophistication I myself was personally lacking at the time. However, there was something else, something that fit the vision for what I was looking for. The SRP045k became my ultimate “Final Boss” for my Seiko dive watch collection.

By all rights the SRP043k, which from now on I will refer to by its moniker the “Spork”, had no rights to exist. It received its moniker in part because of its product code and in part because it was a mashup of two design styles. Seiko took a high legibility pilot style dial and hand set and threw it inside of a massive dive watch case. It was an abomination, but it was a perfect example of what Seiko was doing during that time. It was a design exercise, it was crazy, it worked, and it was a flash in the pan. The Spork was only produced for about 22 months between 2009 and 2011, and as such, developed a bit of a cult following. By the time I had discovered the Spork, it had become a collectible item and entertaining the thought of owning one was put on the back burner.

The Spork is an oddly proportioned beast, with a diameter of 44mm, lug to lug of 50mm, 13.3mm in height topped with a flat hardlex crystal, and a 20mm lug to lug. It’s powered by the seiko 4r15 which isn’t a terribly impressive movement - while it does have a 50 hour power reserve, it lacks the hacking and hand winding of later iterations of the movement. It has a date window at the 3:30 position. The screw down crown, which is protected by guards reminiscent of a more brutish SKX007, is at 4:00 and helps contribute to the watch’s 200m water resistance. 

The pilot dial has numerals at 12, 3, 6, and 9, with fat indices in between, and there are proportionately broad sword hands. Everything is brightly lumed with Seiko’s proprietary lumbrite, and it glows intensely even by modern lume standards. There is a chapter ring with a minute track that visually extends the dial. One of my favorite parts about The Spork is the way the bezel insert ties the whole design together: the width of the minute markers and thicker indices are carried outwardly from the dial to the chapter ring to the bezel. This results in a very visually balanced and legible design.  

The case, as gigantic as it is, has got a few tricks up its sleeve to make it fit my very much not action movie star wrist. First, the bracelet is slightly recessed into the case, similar to on the “Monster” lineup, allowing it to immediately curve down to the wearer's wrist. The drilled lugs gently sweep down to assist in this. The next cool feature is that the caseback is almost completely recessed into the case of the watch, adding very little height to the overall watch. This allows the thickness of the midcase and bezel to anchor the design without being too tall. 

The 20mm lug to lug seems a bit narrow for such a large watch, but the bracelet immediately flares out from the case to 22mm before tapering back down at the divers clasp. The bracelet is thick and has enough heft, both visually and physically, to offset the massive bulk of the watch head. As I mentioned, the 20mm lugs seems like an odd choice if we’re just going by the numbers, but it ends up working out much in the same way it does for the Tuna. The way the lugs are recessed shortens the watch and makes it wear stouter and rounder than the 50mm lug to lug would suggest. Don’t get me wrong, the watch is still massive, a large watch even at a time when large watches were in vogue - but it carries itself well on the wrist. It’s a lot of steel - there's no way to get around that - but all the elements fit together to create a wearable package, albeit still a bit of an odd one.

Acquiring the Spork was a bittersweet moment in my collecting experience. I purchased it at a time when my tastes in watches had long expanded past just Seiko, but it never fully left my mind as my reachable grail watch. There were other, far more sensible choices available to me in 2023, but nothing nearly as quirky or weird. Even though my collection was continuously rotating and my tastes were ever changing, no watch ever singularly occupied that space that the Spork did. It was a watch that was my chase item for so many years as a young collector, so when I had the means to do so, I purchased it. Having learned my lesson from the samurai, I only slightly overpaid for a pristine example in 2023. I immediately proceed to scratch the hardlex crystal (a sapphire crystal replacement in my possession), break the bezel spring (replaced with a NOS one by myself), and wear it as hard as it was meant to be worn. 

Did it live up to its expectations? In many ways, it did not - the watch market has gotten stronger and tool watches have gotten more and more impressive. Watches that offer hardened coatings, sapphire glass, stronger levels of water resistance, and ceramic bezels aren’t as exotic as they once were.  The movements are more accurate too - the entry level Seiko movements now do what the 4r15 couldn’t.Its 44mm diameter is gargantuan in the face of current watch trends.Its price as a collectible item has outgrown its specs by a wide margin. To sum it up, in 2025 the Spork is an overpriced, underperforming, and out of style watch from a bygone era - but I don't care and I still love it. 

Watch collecting is very rarely a hobby based on rational decision making however - this is why I own a Spork and not a Sinn afterall. To that point, the Spork represents a lot of things to me. That weird chunky 2000’s era Seiko dive watch design language, the quickness in which the watch came and went, the fact that it was my first long term target that I ended up acquiring - all these things make the Spork a watch that I am glad to have in my collection, warts and all.